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Maram Aboul Enein

Overview

Maram Aboul Enein is an Egyptian-French fashion design graduate and designer. Most notable for her self-titled fashion design house “MARAM”. With her trademark design scheme and intense knowledge of her field of work, Enein has been awarded and recognised as one of the best young French designers.

Enein graduated in 2013 from the Parsons School of Design Paris, where she learnt how to excel in her field of work. Having done this, she launched her namesake womenswear fashion house ‘MARAM’ in 2014 to rave reviews praising her on her diversity and general inclusivity that the brand is all about. Since the launch in 2014, Enein has been kept up to date and release a new collection every few months that is both in keeping with her brand silhouette and what the customer wants to see from her.

Education

Maram Aboul Enein studied at the prestigious Parsons School of Design Paris whose notable alumni include Donna Karan, Alexander Wang and Marc Jacobs. Enein learnt the basics to design whilst studying and worked closely alongside the legendary Zac Posen and Pierre Balmain (Founder of Balmain Paris). In a 2015 interview Maram said that “I learned how to balance unrestricted creative freedom with the necessary discipline and work ethic required to survive in this industry”.  Not only this but she gained a critical eye that is key and most importantly learnt how to deal with the harsh reality that the fashion industry is coming to be. Upon acquiring this knowledge she used it quickly to create her namesake brand ‘MARAM’.

Enein didn't start off as a fashion student, her initial degree was Fine arts and Sculpture. However in an interview with the Cairo Scene Maram said “painting became a static medium for me - it was too free and I needed something with more structure”. Having come to this conclusion, she decided to apply for the fashion department and it took off from there.

Maram Aboul Enein studied Fashion Design at the Paris College of Art until graduation in 2013. Notable alumni include Tom Ford and Erin Fetherson. Here she learnt the skills needed to both create your own fashion brand but also how to maintain these skills for the fast paced and evolving fashion industry. PCA specialises in womenswear but does bring in industry professionals to teach other segments of the industry such as menswear and beauty.

Career

In September 2014 Maram Aboul Enein opened her namesake brand ‘MARAM’ to the public. The first official collection under the brand was Fall Winter 2015. Having created the brand she had just 3 months to make a collection, build a team and make a suitable atelier all before Paris Fashion Week. When asked by the CairoScene how she did it, Enein simply says “Dedication, persistence and coffee”.

Although given the offer to work with the fashion houses that she had already worked alongside like Oscar De La Renta and Balmain, Enein refused in favour of making her own brand saying “I always knew I wanted to have my own line at some point”. She had her own designs and couldn't let it be muted under the name of another designer. Her father was the person that made her take the chance. He said “If you are waiting until you are ready, that day will not come”. Having said this Enein wrote her business plan that day.

The theme and main inspiration of the brand is ‘Off-Duty Luxury’ with an aim of deconstructing the preconceived design boundaries of classic clothing whilst maintaining an exquisite level of craftsmanship. On the e-commerce website where pieces are available to purchase one of the main phrases that are uttered throughout is ‘sustainably sourced. Ethically manufactured and consciously created’. In a world of fast fashion and cheap labour, MARAM is now one of many design houses taking an ecological stance.

Personal Life

Maram Aboul Enein was born and raised in Egypt, this is where majority of the inspiration for her collections come from. Inspired by the philosophies, theories, politics and spirituality of the country. Enein moved to Paris in order to educate herself in fashion design and graphics as Paris is home to the best design schools including her own, Parsons Paris.

Enein is now settled in Montreal, Canada as this is where she has set up her atelier and design house. She chose this over opening the company in Egypt due to it being too sheltered and seeking a challenge whilst exposing herself to the international competitors as soon as she started her brand. When asked in an interview with CairoScene about returning to Egypt, Enein said “Of course I'm planning to come back to Egypt… Egypt has a booming fashion industry with so much potential but there is a lack of education and resources to reach its full potential”.

Social media

Instagram

Instagram is the most active social media platform used by Maram Aboul Enein. She has created both a professional personal Instagram and a separate Instagram for her brand ‘MARAM’. Started in 2012, Enein’s personal instagram is mostly behind the scenes of her fashion shows, inspiration for her upcoming collections and creating awareness of her business. As a bio on her instagram she has ‘Creative Director’ and a link to both her brand instagram and her brand website. This creates ownership of her brand and acts as a form of advertisement. A key theme of the instagram account is female empowerment and making women confident in what they wear.

The brand instagram for ‘MARAM’ is similar to Enein’s personal instagram with aesthetic posts and photoshoot style images of models wearing her clothes. This account also has a considerable amount of followers, 14.3k as of November 2019. Differing from Enein’s personal Instagram, MARAM uses Instagram Stories as a tool to post behind the scenes images and videos of their collections.

Twitter

This account is considerably smaller than the Instagram with less than 100 followers, however it is still used as a platform to sell the prêt-à-porter womenswear. Most of the content on the Twitter page is sharing articles and promotions that both her as a designer has had and that of the company ‘MARAM’.

Facebook

Again, this account is considerably small too and is linked to the Twitter account so they post at the same time. However the main difference is that Facebook is used as a tool to share behind the scene photos and longer videos such as interviews with the designer. This is a tool that her Instagram does not have.

Editorial

Maram as both a brand and a personality has been highly recognised in editorial fashion magazines. Most recently Enein has been featured in the ‘Re-encounter’ section of the June 2018 ELLE magazine. This highly coveted section of the magazine featured Mariana Mazza wearing a sequinned robe from the SS18 collection by MARAM. Written alongside the images is the process of how the designs came to be for this particular collection and an interview on what is to come next from Enein.

Enein has also been featured on the covers of ELLE Canada in August 2016, this cover was named ‘We the North’, relating to this being the Canadian version of the worldwide publication. The covered donned a group of 6 diverse female models wearing the FW16 collection by MARAM, most distinctly a ‘Colour blocked wool vest with fur coat’. This shoot was photographed by Marie H Rainville and directed by Juliana Schiavinatto. Both of which have closely worked with Enein in the past.

Other notable Editorial features for Maram Aboul Enein include being featured in Harpers Bazaar Best of FW2016, Flare magazine in August 2016 and Vogue ARABIA in March 2018 and Vogue ITALIA in November 2017.

Awards

As a student at Parsons Paris, Enein received multiple awards including the Sophie Hallette Lace Prize in 2012. Here she had to make a presentation of her work showcasing how she would use the Sophie Hallette Lace that was provided.

In 2017, Enein’s namesake brand ‘MARAM’ was nominated by the Canadian Arts & Fashion Awards (CAFA) for The Swarovski Award for Emerging Talent, Fashion. This award is nominated to designers who are emerging and have a true creative force for Canadian fashion. The jury of this award are made up of 40 industry professionals.

Exhibits

In 2016 Enein showcased her work alongside designers from 25 countries in Fashion Utopias, made by the British Council and British Fashion Council. It is made up of a series of specifically commissioned and curated installations and is a key part of London Fashion Week. Enein was part of a city-wide celebration of fashion that is open to all. The location, Somerset House, was transformed into an imaginary scene where the emerging generation showcase their own understandings and designs of Utopia. In the Egypt collection, MARAM was intertwined with other emerging Egyptian designers such as Reem Jano and Marsouma.